It. A year ago I hadn't a relative in the world except two or three

that wouldn't speak to me. Now I've fifty, and not a decent week's

wages among the lot of them. I have to live for others and not for

myself: that's middle class morality. You talk of losing Eliza. Don't

you be anxious: I bet she's on my doorstep by this: she that could

support herself easy by selling flowers if I wasn't respectable. And

the next one to touch me will be you, Henry Higgins. I'll have to learn

to speak middle class language from you, instead of speaking proper

English. That's where you'll come in; and I daresay that's what you

done it for.

MRS. HIGGINS. But, my dear Mr. Doolittle, you need not suffer all this

if you are really in earnest. Nobody can force you to accept this

bequest. You can repudiate it. Isn't that so, Colonel Pickering?

PICKERING. I believe so.

DOOLITTLE [softening his manner in deference to her sex] That's the

tragedy of it, ma'am. It's easy to say chuck it; but I haven't the

nerve. Which one of us has? We're all intimidated. Intimidated, ma'am:

that's what we are. What is there for me if I chuck it but the

workhouse in my old age? I have to dye my hair already to keep my job

as a dustman. If I was one of the deserving poor, and had put by a bit,

I could chuck it; but then why should I, acause the deserving poor

might as well be millionaires for all the happiness they ever has. They

don't know what happiness is. But I, as one of the undeserving poor,

have nothing between me and the pauper's uniform but this here blasted

three thousand a year that shoves me into the middle class. (Excuse the

expression, ma'am: you'd use it yourself if you had my provocation).

They've got you every way you turn: it's a choice between the Skilly of

the workhouse and the Char Bydis of the middle class; and I haven't the

nerve for the workhouse. Intimidated: that's what I am. Broke. Bought

up. Happier men than me will call for my dust, and touch me for their

tip; and I'll look on helpless, and envy them. And that's what your son

has brought me to. [He is overcome by emotion].

MRS. HIGGINS. Well, I'm very glad you're not going to do anything

foolish, Mr. Doolittle. For this solves the problem of Eliza's future.

You can provide for her now.

DOOLITTLE [with melancholy resignation] Yes, ma'am; I'm expected to

provide for everyone now, out of three thousand a year.

HIGGINS [jumping up] Nonsense! he can't provide for her. He shan't

provide for her. She doesn't belong to him. I paid him five pounds for

her. Doolittle: either you're an honest man or a rogue.

DOOLITTLE [tolerantly] A little of both, Henry, like the rest of us: a

little of both.

HIGGINS. Well, you took that money for the girl; and you have no right

to take her as well.

MRS. HIGGINS. Henry: don't be absurd. If you really want to know where

Eliza is, she is upstairs.

HIGGINS [amazed] Upstairs!!! Then I shall jolly soon fetch her

downstairs. [He makes resolutely for the door].

MRS. HIGGINS [rising and following him] Be quiet, Henry. Sit down.

HIGGINS. I--

MRS. HIGGINS. Sit down, dear; and listen to me.

HIGGINS. Oh very well, very well, very well. [He throws himself

ungraciously on the ottoman, with his face towards the windows]. But I

think you might have told me this half an hour ago.

MRS. HIGGINS. Eliza came to me this morning. She passed the night

partly walking about in a rage, partly trying to throw herself into the

river and being afraid to, and partly in the Carlton Hotel. She told me

of the brutal way you two treated her.

HIGGINS [bounding up again] What!

PICKERING [rising also] My dear Mrs. Higgins, she's been telling you

stories. We didn't treat her brutally. We hardly said a word to her;

and we parted on particularly good terms. [Turning on Higgins]. Higgins

did you bully her after I went to bed?

HIGGINS. Just the other way about. She threw my slippers in my face.

She behaved in the most outrageous way. I never gave her the slightest

provocation. The slippers came bang into my face the moment I entered

the room--before I had uttered a word. And used perfectly awful

language.

PICKERING [astonished] But why? What did we do to her?

MRS. HIGGINS. I think I know pretty well what you did. The girl is

naturally rather affectionate, I think. Isn't she, Mr. Doolittle?

DOOLITTLE. Very tender-hearted, ma'am. Takes after me.

MRS. HIGGINS. Just so. She had become attached to you both. She worked

very hard for you, Henry! I don't think you quite realize what anything

in the nature of brain work means to a girl like that. Well, it seems

that when the great day of trial came, and she did this wonderful thing

for you without making a single mistake, you two sat there and never

said a word to her, but talked together of how glad you were that it

was all over and how you had been bored with the whole thing. And then

you were surprised because she threw your slippers at you! _I_ should

have thrown the fire-irons at you.

HIGGINS. We said nothing except that we were tired and wanted to go to

bed. Did we, Pick?

PICKERING [shrugging his shoulders] That was all.

MRS. HIGGINS [ironically] Quite sure?

PICKERING. Absolutely. Really, that was all.

MRS. HIGGINS. You didn't thank her, or pet her, or admire her, or tell

her how splendid she'd been.

HIGGINS [impatiently] But she knew all about that. We didn't make

speeches to her, if that's what you mean.

PICKERING [conscience stricken] Perhaps we were a little inconsiderate.